 It is a pleasure, it is a great pleasure for me to introduce to you Madame Viviane Aredin. She has been a, she is a FOMA member of the European Commission, she has been a member of the European Commission since 1999 until 2014. As you all know, we have already discussed all these details, a member of several European parliaments, the European Parliament, the Luxembourg Parliament and the Atlantic Alliance Assembly, if I'm not mistaken. And the Benelux Parliament. And the Benelux Parliament, all right, so we are four, that exists, all right. And she, as we have, we have mentioned this morning, she is responsible for many legislative initiatives that affect you as students, as consumers, as human beings, Europeans, mobility, and the fence of fundamental rights. And it is really a pleasure to have you here, you cannot imagine. Now the way we are going to proceed is you just, you have a, you know, to introduce the, sure, you could just go there. And then they have prepared a lot of questions for you. Once you finish your intervention, then we will have an open dialogue with all these young students over here. We have a lot of questions for you. All kinds. Thank you. No, it works. Yeah. Thank you, Professor. And thank you for you being here. I'm always very thrilled when I see the future in front of me. And here is the future. And I'm very thrilled because the future is interested about what's going on. Because you cannot build the future if you do not understand the past and analyze what is going on in this moment. So it is very important that you know whatever decision, wherever you have to take those decisions, you have to know and take these decisions by yourself, independently, with your knowledge, with your experience, having learned the experience of the former generations. Now, because I'm sure your professors have told you a lot about Europe, I'm not going to make a long speech, just telling you how I see that this Europe has grown and how I see that it will continue to grow. If you expect from me to be negative, you can leave. I'll give you a minute to leave. Why am I not negative? Of course, you see, my whole life experience tells me that if you like to get things done, you have to approach them in a positive way. If you want to do nothing, then you can complain a lot. So choose in your life what you would like to do. Now, the founding fathers of the European Union, just after the Second World War, they had seen that this whole continent was, every 10, 20, 30 years there was a game, wars and whole generations wiped out and they said enough is enough. We'll stop this. We will try to do something in order to bring these fighting countries, these fighting nations together around a table. Now, how are we going to do that? We don't know because nobody had done that in the history of mankind before. So Europe was built in a sui generis system which had never existed before and it was built step by step. Not the whole thing bluffs there and we go for it. No. Let's start and build more and more and more, which I believe it's still the true for today and it was a very wise decision. So what did the founding fathers, sorry girls, at that time there were no women in politics. So the founding fathers decided, they said, okay, what do the nations need in order to make a war at that time? Steel and coal. So let's put steel and coal together that no nation by itself can anymore utilize its steel, its coal in order to start a new war. And so they started a common market with steel and coal in the beginning. That developed slowly and slowly with the free movement of workers, market workers. Not citizens at that time. It was only the very concrete way how you can bring workers from one place to another. So common market with some goods and free movement of workers. And then all this developed over time into a real single market with the four freedoms. You know the four freedoms of the single market. It is the free movement of capital, of money, of goods, of services, and of people. And why is this so important? You might have heard this now in our discussion with Great Britain. We cannot take one element out of these four freedoms. They are like a hand. They go together, cannot take one away. You take the whole thing or you take nothing. But the four freedoms are a religion. They are holy for us. And then the euro was created just like the Schengen area was created, thinking maybe not everybody can participate, but let's take those who want, who can, and then start to grow. We did the same thing with the Schengen area. You were smiling before when I said that I was a member of the Benelux parliament. But actually Benelux, the Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, they had a free movement area between those three countries before. So it was always like this. Somebody tries something and then others jump on the back wagon and the thing becomes important. It worked like this with the euro and it worked like this with the Schengen, the free movement area. And the big change actually came with the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2009, I think it was. Yes? Okay. Why a big change? Because for the first time, Europe gave itself an extension of powers and something which you could call a constitution. Because with the Treaty of Lisbon, there is a Charter of Fundamental Rights which is not called constitution but which has constitutional rights, actually. It is linked. It has treaty value and it is our Bill of Rights, like the Americans have one. By the way, you have to read these texts very short, but it says everything about the European values. And what is interesting is that from that moment on, the European Commission utilized the values inscribed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights in its lawmaking, European citizenship, which is a double citizenship. You are Spaniards and Europeans. I'm Luxenberger and European. There is no contradiction. It's like the small Russian dolls. One goes into the other or the justice policies which were established at that moment before justice was completely in the hand of the national state. Then it became European for things which were linked to Europe. Erasmus generation. The generation which fell in love, a Spaniard was a Luxenberger and they live in Berlin. So international couples, love, babies, everything. By the way, we count that there are one million Erasmus babies around. So you see justice policies for these Erasmus couples, the international couples because love is wonderful but then you have a divorce or somebody dies, you have a succession rights, cross-border, not easy. So to handle first these very concrete questions. And in the end, at the end of this year, there will be in Luxenberg the European Public Prosecutor Office, which when I started to put that on the table, everybody thought I was completely nuts because, I mean, a prosecutor, that is something which belongs to a state. Now we are going to have a European prosecutor step by step by step. He will be first responsible for the crimes against the European budget, but the second step will be the cross-border criminality, terrorism, and so on and so forth. So you see, we go step by step slowly, slowly. And now we have a new commission. A new commission which says it is going to put several elements very high on the agenda. The geopolitics. Because if you look at the map of the world, you will see that there are several continents which are going to compete. For the time being, it is the United States, China, and Europe. And Europe can only survive. You can only survive in your future if Europe stays united and strong. Because imagine that Luxenberg says now, okay, I will do it my way. And France also and Spain also, we count peanuts. Nothing. It's only when we are together we are at the moment the strongest organized market in the world. We are still. We will take over as politicians as CEOs. We will not be number one anymore. I suppose that China will be number one. But you would like to take your own decisions, won't you? Not that China or the United States or whoever tomorrow will impose a decision on you. No. You like to like to be a standard maker and not a standard taker. And that is exactly where the new commission also lies to go. Geopolitical power of the European Union first. And then on the two very big problems which we have to start to solve so that the next generation still can have a beautiful Europe. Europe with rule of law and Europe with an economy which works and with what is nice living simply. Well, that is our environment. We have to build on the Paris Agreement in order to save our planet. And that is going to cost a lot of money and a lot of energy and a lot of action together. And the second because we are in a complete change of the digital world. If we are not a first mover in this change from the social media world to a platform world where data are the driver of the economy and of the society, it will be imposed to us. So also their first mover. We have seen how you can do that. And that will be the end of the story I tell you now. But because it is a very good point to understand why geopolitical policy has to be done first at home. When I became commissioner for justice, I had to apply the Treaty of Lisbon, of course, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. And in the Treaty of Lisbon and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, there is one article which says that private data belong to the human being and not to somebody else. And I looked at this in reality and I saw that private data did not belong to the human being anymore, to the person. They belong to everybody around but not to you. So my responsibility was to apply in real term a right which was offered to our citizens to apply it also in practice. I was looking at the legislation, 28 conflicting legislations, nearly not applied, efficiency zero. I say okay, easy. Get rid of 28 legislation, replace it by one law for one continent. That is fine. Second, if you are a startup, let's say you build your own startup here in Barcelona. And you start to have a little success but you want to work with your startup in the whole of the European market, at least your market, isn't it? So you need to have an easy access to this market without barriers. But if you have different rules on privacy in each member state, then instead of hiring somebody who knows about data, you have to hire five or six lawyers in order to tell you how you have to behave when you cross the border. Ridiculous. So also for all companies, wherever they go on this market the same. One continent, one rule for all citizens and for all companies operating on this territory. And you know what was happening? Well, we're making this rule. I don't make a long story short because it was very complicated but in the end we did it. And in the end the European legislation became a world standard. Which is now taken up in more and more states around the world in order to copy it or to adapt to it. The European Union doesn't make any trade agreement anymore without the partner having data protection and privacy in its national laws. So by our force, by being together, by thinking in the same time about our people and about our economy. That makes us special because other places of the world do not think in an equilibrium between people and economy. Europe does and that is our specificity and I must tell you I'm very proud to be European. Every time I travel in other continents I'm so happy to come back. Because really, not only that it is beautiful, okay, you find beautiful spots all over the world. But you feel comfortable because you know you have rights. You have the rule of law and you have people who are looking for your good. You are not oppressed, you are a free person and I think that is important. That we want to keep and that we can only keep with a strong Europe. Now it's on your questions. Thank you very much. Now we just opened up to the dialogue. So the floor is yours. Anyone having a question for Madam Breding? Just raise your hand. And then you get the microphone. You are going to stay here or you can take this and I go down. What is it for students? Are you? I go down. Okay. So who is the first one who likes to take questions? Women first. You are absolutely right. I come to this side. So well, talking about women first. That's probably what my question is about. So yeah, I was reading an article you wrote for the Guardian in November 2012. Which is called, it's time to break the gas ceiling for Europe's women. And in this article you were talking about how the plan for Europe was to have by the year 2020 40% of representation of women in corporate boards. However, in 2019 report on equality between women and men in the European Union, the percentage is way lower. It's around 26%. France being the only country about 40%. I think Italy. Oh yeah, Italy I think it also. But yeah. Well my question was more how do you think Europe could fix that? Should we focus more on quarters or? Well, look how we fix it. We have a female president of the European Commission, a female president of the European Central Bank, and a female president of the World Bank. Good starting point, isn't it? And Madam President has really insisted that she has a very high number of female members of the commission. So by doing, by pushing it through, by changing the mentality. When I came, when I got the dossier in my hands of equality, I saw that the equality was nowhere. We still have very big differences in revenue for the same work, the pay gap we call that. And women in power positions were not to be found. Now, you have two possibilities to do it. You have to, can do it bottom up by education. It takes enormous time. So I thought I would do it by role models. If you are a young woman and you go to business and you see that there are other women there, you say, I can do it also. If you are a young woman, you go to business and you start to work and there's no woman there and everybody is oppressing you. You say, I will never manage. So it's important to have the role models. That's why I had the idea to have quarters for bringing women into the conseil d'administration, into the boards of listed companies. My goodness. You cannot imagine what the male business world was doing. Shouting. That was the end of our social market system. It was the end of our companies. We had really all to collapse. So until now, the law is not enforced at the European level. But what has happened? I went to see the women's organizations, the journalist organizations, the political organizations of all parties, the lawyers and so on and so on. And I told them, girls, you have to help. I cannot do that alone. And they were helping. They started in television, in the newspapers, in conferences, the debate about this. And they got the pledges, finally, from the companies. And today companies feel ashamed if they do not have women in their boards. By the way, it's a very bad idea because boards where men and women work together make the best economic results. For the simple reason that it is a combination of both talents and of both sensitivities, which makes that companies work well. And why the differences in our member states? Simply because in France, they made a law. France has always been very advanced on questions of females in the working place. And in Italy, there were two gorgeous members of parliament, a rather elderly woman from the Christian Democrats and a very young woman from the Socialists. And they decided, we two together will make a law proposal. They put the Quote Rose, the Rosa Quotas. They put it on the table and none of their female, of their male colleagues had the courage to vote against. So Italy very soon had this law on the Quote Rose and that changes also the action because companies are forced to have women on board. Well, ten years is a long time. I think the mentalities have changed. I think that now all the companies are going for talent. And if you go for talent, the talent is with the females and with the males. You have the good ones, the less good ones. And we need talent in Europe. We cannot afford to have half of our talent be put in a corner. It doesn't work anymore. And that is why I believe very strongly that slowly, slowly problems are going to be changed. And you see, if I would have said ten years ago that one day we are going to have the three more most important institutions with a female president, nobody would have believed it. But today it seems nice, normal. So we are on a good way. Okay, I wanted to ask about the Mercosur Trade Agreement because in the point 14 it includes clauses regarding the upholding of the Paris Agreement, fight against the forestation and fight against the use of recently deforested areas for cropping. But I want to ask how much can the European Union trust partners, such as Brazil, who under the new government has been clearly deforested and managed to climate stability and if there are any mechanisms in those kind of agreements to enforce the environmental standards. Trust is nice, control is better. And that is why, because also you said it very clearly, if I make an agreement with you today and you are the boss of a company. And in two years you are gone, your company has to cling with the agreement and not the next was saying, okay, I don't agree with this. And that is why in our trade agreements, as you have rightly quoted, so we put the environmental labor, labor for instance, no child labor allowed, and social elements, GDPR, data protection, we put it into our agreements. And if the other party does not keep the rules, then we have retaliation measures. But you never want to come to retaliation measures. You try to solve problems before. So yes, trust is, you have to have trust to make an agreement, but to keep an agreement, you need to have a very solid look at it. I had seen him first. So who is the next? No, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. So come there, yes. Thank you. It's true that the EU, it's an example for the international world, as a model of union and integration. But also as part of the history, it's important to think about the dark side of Europe. Especially we know that Europe historically, historically has been poor with raw material. And what do you think about that dark history of Europe? Especially regarding the exploitation of European countries in Latin America and Africa, and what is happening in that region of the world reality that we have many big problems of all kinds. But it's like, what do you think too about the dark side of Europe? Well, it was exactly the dark side of Europe which made us to create Europe. Because Europe is many member states, many states which through centuries have had a very negative action, not only Europe, also other parts of the world. And all the wars, the exploitation in Africa, mostly in Africa, all this has been changed by wanting to have a system built on the rule of law. So that was very important to have rules, a rule-based system. And to develop also an important part of our business is in order to help the regions outside the European Union. Europe is the biggest economic help-giving in the whole world. So we have a responsibility there, but of course those countries have also a responsibility to keep the rules. So Europe is a good example of what you can do if there are dysfunctions. You have to create a legal system with checks and balances and with a court which is very important. The European Court of Justice has an enormous power in a positive sense because it corrects if the political leaders do something in their decision-making or in their application which would not be fair according to the commonly agreed basic rules. So a system based on the rule of law and with the control mechanisms built on the rule of law is very important. Okay, since I have the microphone, thank you for your talk and for reminding us of the perks of Europe and the things we actually take for granted. I'm saying it as a non-EU member-state citizen. I'm from Serbia from the Western Balkans and therefore I'm going to ask you a question regarding the neighborhood and enlargement policy. So now it's a hot topic Western Balkans and what's happening and I'm actually asking just because of the Euroscepticism which is also rising in the country where I'm coming from regarding the EU membership. So what is your opinion? Are we likely to expect membership in the years to come and how many years we're going to wait more for it? Thank you. The EU membership is not for zero. It goes with a lot of conditions and that is why before a state can become member of the European Union it has to fulfill all these conditions and normally the time before a state is ripe to enter the European Union is a long time. I have negotiated part of the agreement with Croatia. I have negotiated the justice part of it and I can tell you in one and a half years four ministers of justice have given up because they had to sleep in their office. So difficult it was to build up a well functioning justice system in a country which was coming out of the communist non-justice system area so had to do everything from scratch. Just telling you this and the Copenhagen criteria with all the rules of law conditions and then the economic conditions which have to be fulfilled is a long procedure. So it doesn't go from one day to another. So that is one thing. That's a technical thing. Now the political thing. If you look at the map of Europe you see very well that the continent misses a part between central Europe and southern Europe the whole Balkans and you know also what kind of wars there were in the Balkans still it's difficult to keep the different populations which hate each other because there has been a lot of terrible things happening to make them smoothly going into a democratic system. We have as European Union promised to the Balkans that they would one day become member of the European Union. Personally I believe Paktasun Selvander which means if you make such a promise and that is not just a promise I promise you we go for a coffee afterwards. It is an existential promise for those countries you have to keep this promise under the condition that things are going smoothly to the right direction. You think probably about President Macron and his blocking of the process. Now that brings me to another political element. There is a very big enlargement fatigue with our populations. You are coming from a country which would like to enter the European Union and you have a fatigue because things are lasting too long. In my part of the world there is this fatigue again, somebody else and we have to pay and you see you have these two points of view and if you do not have politicians who are strong and who go for it and are just listening to what people say at a certain moment then it goes wrong. So it is a complicated thing but geography is a clear thing and geography shows you that yes of course it is an anomaly to leave this part of Europe outside of the Union. How long will it take? I cannot give you this answer. It will continue to be complicated on both sides on your side which has to comply with all the rules and on our side which has to have to persuade the populations that it is a good thing to do but practice and serve under in the end. Well first of all thank you very much for coming to UPF. You mentioned the success of the Erasmus program. I think it was two days ago that the commission released the 2018 annual report and now we know that since 1978 10 million European citizens have had the possibility of participating in the Erasmus program. However as far as I am concerned the Erasmus program still today remains being quite an elitist program because only those who can afford traveling abroad or only those who do not have any kind of physical barrier to travel abroad can participate. So I would like to ask you what can be done to make the Erasmus program more inclusive and what role do you think local communities like us play in doing so. Thanks. Well you know that Erasmus is the only European policy which has its own film. So and here in Barcelona. Have you seen this film? Yeah you have seen it. I was responsible in my first term for the Erasmus program and that was my first term was 20 years ago I was quite in the beginning of Erasmus so what I did at that moment was to open Erasmus to the world. Erasmus Mundus. Because I thought it would be beyond going to Barcelona and having big fun sharing an apartment. It would also be interesting for our students to have the possibility the possibility to go to the United States to go to China to go to Brazil or wherever. So I opened this possibility and I started to make agreements with states outside of the European Union in order to have an Erasmus window. And at that moment also I asked universities to take initiatives so that they would make joint ventures between universities in Europe and universities outside of Europe. And then the second element which I tried to establish but I didn't manage to get it through because I saw well university is nice fantastic 9 million and so on. We had also the primary and secondary schools but not as individual students as groups in links with other schools nice but there was a hole in the whole thing professional training. How you call that in Spain professional? So the people who are not continuing their intellectual studies but they are learning a craft and you see where the whole Erasmus idea started actually was from these people because in the middle ages when you wanted to become a craftsman you had to go from crafts from city to city to learn with established craftsmen your profession. And I thought it would be why we have started with universities only and we leave those who are working in a craft outside. So I'm happy to tell you that now the craftsman the people who are doing this I don't know the terminology how is La Prentissage? Apprenticeships Apprenticeships So those who are in apprenticeships that they can again do it in the middle age style that's easily said but not so easily done it's also the recognition of the time you work with a master and that is different from the different member states so it is not easy but we are on the way to do that. Now the finances of course is a problem and that stays a problem Europe does not have enough money in order to pay the whole system it can only give help to the system so it's true that your family if you want to do an Erasmus your family or yourself by working during the summer and making some money you have to have a little money in your hand before you can do it but I do not see that we can change that the money will certainly not be that are the flaws of the whole thing but think about one million Erasmus babies isn't that wonderful Thank you for being at UPF first of all I think one can say you are for very deep European integration maybe even a United States of Europe at one point from your future for Europe initiative as economists it's pretty clear that for a stable long-term Europe we would need greater fiscal integration on a European level as well but maybe even more labour mobility and flexibility than we have today so my question is in the context of very different European cultures what do you think could be an bonding element to increase the European Demas or in other words a common for Europe like a common goal apart from the EU itself Thank you I am one of those who always believed in the United States of Europe to make it clear that's not the United States of America Europe is not a matter it will never become we will always have the cultural diversity which to my opinion is our big wealth so maybe the terminology was also not right because nobody likes to give up his culture his language his way of living and so on so our way but stronger integration is absolutely necessary and I still do believe that but to have a stronger integration you would need a new treaty now we have some problems in Europe to find unanimity today if you only take somebody like Orban in Hungary or Kaczynski in Poland who are in this moment dismantling the rule of law and an independent judiciary you can understand that a stronger Europe which would have more means deviations to the right way will never find their agreement so it would be unrealistic in this moment to go for this dream maybe your generation will take it up but that does not mean that we are standing still you might have seen that the president of the European Commission together with the president of the parliament and the president of the council have pledged to have future of Europe convention going starting not one as we had the last one where it was only the constitutionalists sitting together trying to push for a closer union but it would be with the people with a lot of public citizens dialogues like the one we have today but then on specific questions where we would ask the opinion of citizens in the different member states I personally believe that we can do a lot of reforms staying with the treaties as they are because the treaties very often give us a way out if you are in politics you have to have a lot of imagination sometimes everything I did was possible with the treaties but everybody told me it's not possible you can't do that you will never win this but if it is possible technically speaking even by making a small slalom then you need a political will to do it look roaming do you think that those super big telecom companies were agreeing no they all went to their minister of finance and he said your country is going bankrupt if we are losing all this money because we do not give you this money anymore as taxes in order to put in your budget so all the ministers of finance were against in the end we won it but it was a 10 year fight and you need to lead the fight you need to find allies because you can never do anything like this alone you need to have strong enough allies who go with you for the same thing and you need to have a lot of long term investment but I do believe that the changes will occur maybe not all those which have been announced but a part of those I do believe that changes will occur there where we do not have a choice that is for instance the environment and that is a digital development there there is no way out we do it or we fail but really as a continent so this we will do all the others will need a very strong leader a good commissioner and a good allies so yes we can have economic stronger living together we have also on the social element on the social level the idea to have some kind of minimum income which would not be a horizontal one because your countries cannot have the same minimum income as Luxembourg it would destroy the economy completely but to have a minimum income as a job guarantee and as a social security guarantee for the human being this we can do I know very well the new commissioner for social affairs who is a Luxembourger and he really wants to get it done I wish him well and I think he will get the minimum but step by step you see again so thank you so much for your time and being here explaining all these wonderful stories and leading the way so as a European I feel a bit fear because of the climate change crisis happening and then I came across the lecture you did for the John Monet in the UK in 2001 saying that the European Union needs to be more and more and it's been a while I understand that things need to be done step by step and you prove it by example I mean you get one thing done at the time but I think that right now there's an issue because we don't have these 10 more years I mean 10 more years we are already in the agenda of 2030 with the Sustainable Development Goals which the commission already agreed to that but I don't know I don't know about the climate emergency and so on but I fear that maybe it's a bit too late could have something be done before yes we should have done before certainly but we didn't certainly we are where we are now with a complete environmental urgency but I think that you have understood it the young people have really understood because it is their future and all the experts all the scientists have calculated what is going to happen so the European Commission is working on a green deal which says what needs to be done not top down but bottom up in the different member states in order to get the problem under control not to solve the problem because that's too late but to get it under control that it doesn't go to the absolute catastrophe where it will go if we don't do anything we will need a lot of money for doing this and the good news here is that those who have the money for instance the European Investment Bank or the European Central Bank they have pledged to green bonds to green investments and they are really working on this it's not the European Investment Bank is already doing that now several years and it's going to reinforce this action we have a need as calculated globally in the whole European Union that means not only at the level of Europe but also at the level of local communities of roughly 200 billion euros per year and that is the cost we have to invest into this this cannot come from the European Budget because European Budget is too small for this but the European Budget has pledged a fund for helping those areas in Europe which to simply do not have the money because we have this economic differences in Europe to help those out the rich ones to do it by themselves the medium ones to get a little help and the poor ones to give them the push to go ahead we see help of the money which exists in the European Investment Bank but we have to understand that we do not have time for discussing anymore it is time for action because it is already late we see around the world how late it is and how many extreme effects we have so yes you are right we should have started this before but sometimes you have to have the nose in the dirt I mean that there was a problem and you were falling down so we have the nose in the dirt now and we have to move and actually I am one of those who is very happy that the young people went to the street I think that was important not to say that they are better in the street than studying I think they have to do both but to go out and to say we got enough of this move go ahead and I think that they went everywhere in all member states and so many young kids and sometimes the grandmother came with them and the dog also it was interesting it was interesting and it was a wake up call and I think this pressure should continue you should engage in all the levels where you are into this discussion and say that you do not want to wait for political actions to be taken but you need them to be taken now if not not my generation but your generation is going to suffer so yes we are behind of this so many hands you have already the average gross salary per hour in Bruxelles is 44 hours while in Bulgaria is 4 hours 4 euro per hour in comparison with the European average that is 22.68 how necessary do you think is a European wage indexed to the cost of living in order to have a fair labor market avoiding the recent phenomena of production delocalization towards European union countries so Visegret that is exactly the same or similar question which has been asked just before we have very big differences in income in general look I am coming from one of the wealthiest countries in the world Luxembourg where wages are extraordinary high but that means also that a cleaning lady has a wage in Luxembourg probably like a professor in Spain I don't go until Spain I take only a bus driver a bus driver in Luxembourg is earning the double bus driver in Belgium because the general income levels are very different so you always have to see the minimum income as a fair price according to the general income you know that Europe is a solidarity model and our biggest element in the European budget are the funds the agricultural fund the regional fund the social fund in order to help the regions or the countries which allow to grow and own production possibility you have the differences and you cannot wipe them out we are not but you have those differences even in the United States for instance depending on where you are in the United States you have no guarantee at all even not a healthcare guarantee so what we like to do in Europe is that at least according to the environment you have a guarantee minimum and you have also a healthcare system which is fair, correct and which can help the human being so on this we can work eliminate from one day whether the cost structures income structures the wealth structures of our region that will not be possible but by helping them out I mean if I look how the situation was how the situation was in Bulgaria before and after before they joined the European Union and after they are in the European Union is day and night because everything has gone up also the well-being of the populations the income of the populations has gone up but there is still a huge difference between Bulgaria and Luxembourg because Bulgaria has started so long after Luxembourg so you need time in order to have these economic developments but these your economic professors are going to tell you better than I can we are working on equality which does not mean being the same but it means in your environment having a fair treatment that is what we are working on thank you very much I would like to ask how would European Union manage the crisis of the rise of right-wing populism and the rise thanks if I knew the answer why before you can solve a problem you have to see where the problem is coming from why all of a sudden all this right-wing populism when you look at where it is originated it is originated in places where the job situation is not good and the education system is not good frustrated people elections in the United States where did Trump get the votes from from this absolutely frustrated left alone parts of the populations in for instance the Rust Belt where steel industry simply didn't work anymore so and if you look in Europe it is very often the same this goes together with an information society built on the internet where the fake news or the targeted advertising is very easy to be done give you the example of what has happened during the British referendum where the anti-Europeans they got the help of the company Cambridge Analytica led by Bannon the councillor of Trump and financed by Mercer a very rich family in the United States in order to do what in order to produce targeted ads linked to the personality of the person who was receiving those ads now they got also a lot of data from Facebook Facebook handed over hundreds of thousands of data to this company and they addressed themselves to this uneducated frustrated part of the population in order to tell them that the problem for all their terrible things is Europe and the solution is getting out of Europe so this was the basis for experience and they have applied the same thing also in United States now they are bankrupt in Europe but they are working still helping mostly dictators to win the next elections so frustrated people who are turning their ears to fake news and to extremism is not a European alone phenomenon it has become unfortunately a worldwide phenomenon it is not becoming smaller it is growing now I know that there are a lot of initiatives taken the commission of justice has made a speech yesterday I think on how to break down fake news at least I see that very difficult because I'm coming from communication science how communication functions now you know that on the internet a doomsday fake news message goes six times more quickly than an objective message and reaches out to six times more people more ten times more people but six times more quickly and you have seen it also this happened to the Orhinia in Burma you have seen how the violence of Christchurch has been amplified by fake news on the internet so we have a very big danger which is linked to the social network infrastructure the good news here is that social media infrastructure still have a lot of income but their reputation is passed and everywhere the problems in the developed world in the democratic world the problems are starting to become evident and the politician the political leaders are starting to fight back but it's not easy because this equilibrium which you have to find between what Americans would call free speech we have free speech in Europe and controlling fake news is a very delicate balance not easy to do it's easy to say but to do it in practice is really not easy who has some players of the game so we have the states which maybe didn't want to play hello sorry in 2016 you stated that the problem of the EU was not the EU itself but the players of the game so the heads of the states etc which maybe didn't want to follow the same rules as the rest and my question was then more a personal question where do you think the EU is going so should we actually let the people who wants to leave and make it easier for them to leave such as a Brexit or should we try to include them as well and still pretend to look strong economically do we need to be like maybe less in number more strongly linked to each other that is a question shall we be big Europe or a concentrate Europe but you have so many questions in your question I would like to answer because people who want to leave before the Brits were starting to leave there were many who thought it might be a good idea since the Brits have started to leave I have not seen a single other member state who thinks it would be a good idea and it's interesting to see that the people who believe that Europe is a solution were rather low before Trump and Brexit with Trump and Brexit the percentage of people who think Europe is a good solution has risen very strongly and people start to think also what is the advantage of being so why did I say that the problem is not the institutions it's not the European Commission which makes good proposal it's not the European Parliament which is very European minded and thought finding solution it is the Council of European Ministers where very often the Ministers are putting the food on the break Great Britain for instance managed to stop 12% of the proposals of the European Commission nobody knows that but that is what is happening the Council of Ministers the Council of Ministers is undoing things why can the Council of Ministers do that because it's absolutely not transparent the Commission is very transparent all decisions are explained in a daily press conference to the journalist before a decision goes out it is explained everybody knows how it came upon and in the European Parliament all the discussion meetings even are public so everybody can see who is doing what who is saying what the only place in the world where nothing is public is in the Council of Ministers and then you have the Ministers who at home say oh I went to Brussels and I and I and I but behind closed doors has just done the contrary and nobody finds out that's why I always said we need to have more transparency so that at least when you are a German and your German Minister has gone to the Council and that again that you know at least that has done the stupidity now you cannot know so you see that is what I believe should be done in order to solve this problem that was the meaning of what I said no the other question should be have a new enlargement even make this Europe bigger or should we go to the core Europe and advance with 6, 7, 8 countries in an open way and leave others then to come in I was always opposing this position because I always believe that we have to advance together after having seen what I have seen in my political experience I think that it might be the only solution in the future but let's first see what will come out of our discussions on the future of Europe because I think that is also a point which has to be discussed there not only some of us doing it but we know who had the idea to go for Europe of concentric service Wolfgang Scheuble he was the one who pleaded for this since years and years and I had fights with him since years and years because I pleaded for the contrary I had to say three years ago to Wolfgang Scheuble you were right but I know I was right as he is as a character I think to be discussed in the future citizens' dialogues which we will have all over the place so who, what you see better maybe than me to whom should we deal with I think it is first we take maybe short questions you see me discriminating I saw it because of the discrimination maybe we make short questions and then we write about European Union I will go fast this question is regarding democracy in Europe and it is true that we go for elections to the European Parliament however it is also true that our representation of one vote is really indirect so do you believe this system can do better in order to gain maybe the trust of the European citizen who doesn't see himself as a true representative or true representation in Europe I was always for at least having the national lists but also having a transnational list I would have loved to make once an election campaign on a transnational list I will not but maybe you will why is it difficult on a transnational list it is difficult first because all the other parliamentarians who have been elected on a national list will think those on the transnational list elected on the transnational list will think they are something better first problem psychological but very important and then member states are against because that means they would need to give up some of their national because you know it is a distribution of the positions in parliament for this transnational list so it is a difficult question and frankly although it would have been fun for me I speak also some languages and I understand cultural diversity would have really been fun to do it but I am not sure it will work on the contrary what I believe is that the election of a president of the European commission because that people can understand they have five or six candidates from different countries probably none of their country of origin and they are going around in order to become president of the European commission to have such an election by the people I can imagine it would be easier than to have this mixed thing of national selection sometimes regional I think in your place it is a regional vote for the European it depends some countries have a national vote others have a regional vote and some have the parties who put you number one or two I am coming from a country where one or two is a cross behind the name so to bring all this to one system will be very very difficult and I am not sure it will be a value added with the exception of the Spitzenkandidat system where I am for yes you do it we take all the questions so back in 2013 when Edward Snowden revealed to the world that a lot of the heads of state were under surveillance like Angela Merkel I was just wondering what your initial reaction was back then and whether you thought you were being I answer you at once thank you because my GDPR my data protection I had an in because of the American lobbying very efficient in the different member states in the capitals because not transparency also there more difficult in European Parliament but I was nowhere and when Snowden came out I sat there and I said thanks lord thanks lord the day after I had a majority in Parliament and in council my question is also about digitalization does the use is building capacities like infrastructure or getting digital skills or educating IT staff as a problem and whose responsibility to tackle this yes education is in the hand of the national states sometimes even of the regions in Germany for instance is not Berlin it is responsible for education programs it is a different lander so Europe can only be a helping hand we are lagging behind enormously because we are missing so much trained engineers technicians or just computer savvy people that you cannot imagine and we will not manage in our data driven future if we do not have those people the second element is that many of the people who are in a job now have to be retrained lifelong learning but not only as a slogan in real terms they have to be retrained or they will be useless in a data driven system so there we do have a problem because the reforms of the education system is generally very heavy and very slow and we do not have time and the second problem is that we do not have the teachers to teach the teachers because very many teachers feel also agressed due to the fact that sometimes the students or the pupils know more about technology than they do and here one of the biggest problem we and when I say we collectively everybody in Europe all the member states all the regions have is to adapt our education system to the digital world I'll be quick mine is has the European Commission done all the necessary to protect the human rights of the refugees in theory yes in practice it is very difficult if the refugee now refugees let's see what we are speaking about if you are an economic refugee you are just leaving your country because you would like to have a better life somewhere else that is not protected by any laws it is illegal migration if you are fleeing terror war or personal discrimination for instance you are a homosexual in the Arab world whatever you fall under very concrete rules and you have the right your case to be examined to get the statute of a refugee so 90% or 95% of those who come do not fall into this second category and that is a very big problem and they come whatever might happen they pay a lot of money to criminal gangs in order to be shipped over and then they come to places where which have not been constructed or built in order to receive such an amount of people it is one of the most difficult questions because human beings are concerned it's not about the law it's about human life it's about children very often unaccompanied accompanied children who are pushed by their parents out so that if they are received their parents can join them and it's a few extraordinary difficult then you have in the populations which are in those places where these masses come the aggressivity starts to become bigger and bigger which means that local politicians national politicians have to fight with an adversity against receiving more people but these more people arrive so how to square the circle it's very complicated and unfortunately I do not believe that it is going to become much better there was the war crisis where the input was very very big now there is not a war crisis anymore the input has gone down very much but there is no war crisis look at Africa don't even think now about the Syria and Iraq question just look at Africa look at how many countries in Africa are democracies how many countries are capable to feed their people how the desertification is taking away land imagine then the moment you are in politics or economic responsibility what pressure we will have from Africa in Navy Table we can't avoid it it's going to happen and it's going to be extraordinary difficult I know that there are a lot of solutions on the table they are all theoretical we need for instance well also with the question of do we have enough trained people for our digital economy we don't we need to build a system of green cards in order to import people who can do this kind of jobs we need to set up some rules in order also to give a possibility for people from Africa to come in an orderly way but all this is theory the practice is that those people don't wait to get an authorization they just take their back and they come and you cannot not make them come if they really want some of those have already tried three or four times and they come again and again so it is a human crisis which is going to which is there to stay it's not going to go away if there will be a war somewhere it's going to augment very quickly but even in no war times where nobody needs to flee bombs even in no war times look at the world map and you will understand that Hi I would like to know how the freedom of movement can be improved in order to like if some states put some requirements hard to feel to apply for jobs or just to move to that place well we do have a freedom of movement for European citizens you are from what nationality you are from Poland you can come to work here in Spain you can come to work in Luxembourg and nobody can stop you from doing that you have the right to that is a freedom of movement for European nationals if you are coming from a third country not member of the European Union there are very many conditions so that you can come and those conditions are national conditions they are not European conditions each member state has conditions which you have to fulfill if you are coming from a third country as a third country national to work in Europe what are those requirements to have a corporation that is going to hire you so like a pre-contract okay, yes but you have the freedom to make this contract if you find a contract yes, something else if you come and then you are heavy burden on the health system and you do not make money and it's going to be a problem for the community into which you go but if you find a job there is no problem nobody can stop you to go this is a free movement you have the free movement to be a tourist as much as you want to be a student you have also to show that you are capable to pay for your living but if you find a work you are free to move but of course we cannot you know why these rules are allowed in order not to have the state benefit seeking migration for instance because in Luxembourg really these allowances are very high that thousands of people come to Luxembourg having no intention to work there but just getting the allowances allowances are not done for this purpose the allowances are done for the purpose of somebody who falls in between two nets in order to recuperate this person but are not done in order to have a tourism for the social allocations thank you very much thank you for everything there were 80 people there each one of them had at least one question for you you have answer 17 that means you will have to come back thank you very much thanks for coming